Assessment of Whole-Body-Average SAR for Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields up to 30 GHz Using Body Model With Scaled Dielectric Parameters

The recently revised ICNIRP guidelines specify basic restrictions for whole-body exposure in terms of whole-body-average specific absorption rate (WBASAR) up to 300 GHz. However, numerical assessments of WBASAR above 10 GHz are difficult to be carried out due to the significant computational burden involved. To overcome this difficulty, this study introduces a novel scaled permittivity and permeability model for analyzing WBASAR. The proposed model was validated using both one-dimensional (1-D) and 3-D canonical models. Following that, WBASAR was assessed in a detailed anatomical adult model exposed to incident plane waves from 1 to 30 GHz and electromagnetic fields generated by an 8 × 16 patch array antenna at 28 GHz. The proposed approach facilitates WBASAR assessments of base-station antennas at quasi-millimeter-wave frequencies while ensuring the accuracy of numerical simulations. The implementation of a scale factor resulted in substantial memory reduction. With a scale factor of 1/3, we achieved a similar level of accuracy using a 0.5-mm resolution whole-body model up to 30 GHz, remarkably decreasing memory usage to approximately one-eighth of what simulations without the scale factor would require. In addition, the WBASAR results confirm that at 28 GHz, WBASAR correlates well with the incident power density averaged over the body projection area.